Iratze
by alter-sweet-ego
Summary: Dark times, bright nights. One night between CoFA and CoLS.


**IRATZE**

_Alec Lightwood/Magnus Bane, angst, romance. Rating M, I guess._

~.~

Alec Lightwood is in his first relationship, and his hands are always cold.

Magnus Bane often forgets about the first, but the second is hard to forget, even impossible, especially when Alec (and his cold hands!) climbs into bed.

He smells like sandalwood and a bit like smoke and blood. Magnus opens his eyes, and the neon light slightly flowing from the street is enough to see slowly whiten outlines of Iratze on Alec's shoulder.

The first impulse is to snap his fingers lightning the room, then to pass his hand over Alec's new scars finding out what's happened, then to figure out how it should be healed, and finally heal. Fast, painless, forever. Magnus hardly lets this impulse go because probably there is already no pain and his magic would likely be inappropriate.

And well, a little pain never hurt, it's quite useful, or you risk to forget what the pain really is. What happens, if you forget about life can be a bitch, that's what Magnus knows too good to despise it.

Honestly, Alec knows enough to think this way, too.

You have only to forget about your past, and here it is, catching you. You have only to forget about Camille, and here she is, as if nothing had happened. Stares at you twisting her mouth into a smile like you're a dog and she's about to give you a sugar bone or some toy to play, and then offers you to return what you both had before, and then screws up her eyes, and then runs away, and then nobody knows where she is.

Magnus doesn't want to think about it anymore.

"Hello," he says, his sleepy voice sounds hoarse.

"Hi." Alec stretches out pulling him closer.

Of course, Magnus doesn't mind it at all. Of course, Magnus likes when this fragile shy boy starts to act like an owner. Actually, Magnus thinks that later Alec will turn this way more and more – masterful and confident, so good… If they have their luck.

But they're bound to have luck, aren't they?

Habitually, he drives away from the thoughts of all may happen in different way. Hey, in the end, he is over eight hundred years old, he has so much power it's hard to imagine and so much experience he would be scared himself to be the enemy of Magnus Bane. And White Book… Yeah, it's also very important.

It's a good set. Seriously. It's a good set to solve their problem, he only needs to use this set right.

"How did all go?" Magnus asks.

Alec shrugs even if it's uncomfortable to do that in bed, and Magnus turns to him. He needs no words to understand that everything is as bad as usual and they didn't find anything. Anyone. There's no Jace and no success in their attempts to find him, honestly, they don't even know how to search. Tracking spells are snapped abruptly, oh no, not even "snapped", they are _loped off_ as if an edge of axe falls down to a thick neck separating head from body and body from head.

Magnus just hopes it wouldn't be so painful.

Truth be told, Magnus hopes too much.

"He is not dead," Alec says stubbornly.

"Of course, he is not."

_If he were dead, you would have felt it._

"If he were dead, I would have felt it."

"Yes, darling."

That is their usual conversation. Well, not usual usual, but these days – yes, because after what happened, after Jace was gone, they have such talks twice a day.

May be, more.

A funny thing about that is that a few months ago Magnus wouldn't have mind if Jace had decided to disappear. Of course, Magnus would prefer if Jace did it safe, but hey, sometimes he infuriated him so much so Magnus would have been okay with un-safety, either.

But there was one problem. A stubborn, annoying, selfish and arrogant Jace was bound to his Alec so close. They were bound by this dark thin outlines forming the narrow rune right under their collarbones.

Magnus leads his fingers round the lines of Alec's rune.

"He's alive."

The reason why they repeat it so often isn't they are scared he's not.

Magnus, for example, just wants Alec to relax for a bit. So he presses his lips to a hard, stubborn chin and slowly slides fingers over his sides as if he were trying to count Alec's ribs.

In fact, he is trying to count the scars.

Well, actually once he has already counted them, and now every time is a checking.

"It tickles," snorts Alec quietly.

Magnus can answer that it will tickle even more or something like that, but all words seem to be too stupid and heavy. And their voices sound dismayed and bitter a bit, but Magnus doesn't use to feel any dismay and has always prefer to mask all the bitterness. This time he masks it beneath what he is number one in.

No, really, in kissing Alec he really does best.

The secret? It's just his favorite work.

Despite everything, Alec responds to him willingly. Alec responds to him greedily as if these canary yellow sheets were protecting them from whole world, or, even more, as if nothing bad had happened, and his family weren't about losing its sons one by one, or the demons couldn't reach him and bite him between the plates of his gear, or… Alec pulls him closer, and Magnus loses the train of his thoughts.

There are no thoughts anymore.

They're kissing like it's their last night on Earth, like there will be no neon light, no smell of sandalwood, no tender touches anymore. But it will, everything will be alright in the end, they will have their "happily ever after" and "till death won't do us apart". They'll have it, if Magnus have luck.

Time is a good teacher and this teacher taught him how fleeting all life could be. This teacher taught him to appreciate all that he has, and Magnus is grateful to time, even his education wasn't so sweet.

Alec's lips are so sweet. Always. Even if he drinks a sugar-free coffee with milk, and this coffee isn't stolen by snapping fingers and magic, but the self-brewed… Oh, by the Angel, what coffee is he thinking about?

How can he think about anything at all when Alec moves forward to him, and his cold fingers traces his skin, and his whisper is so incoherent and so hot. Alec's heart beats so loud it could be heard everywhere all over Brooklyn, every sound feels like it could be heard all over Brooklyn, every breath and every exhalation coming through Alec's teeth, every moan…

Usually, Magnus counts Alec's moans because it's the only way to keep self-control.

Today he loses count immediately, but it doesn't make them feel worse.

Actually, it makes them feel better.

…When everything ends and time till the dawn is enough only to snap his fingers, get two glasses of water and recover their breath, Magnus says, "Iratze," and kisses Alec's pale rune.

"Iratze," Alec repeats and suddenly smiles, "You are my Iratze. Without you I would—"

Magnus interrupts him. "I know. Me too."

Sure, he has a part of demon blood in his veins, and it's too much to make runes have any effect on him, but he knows how it works. And Alec is the only salvation for him.

His only hope.

His future.

Alec's hands are always cold and this is his first relationship. He will be nineteen soon, and the number of his scars is twenty two, some of them time will never erase. Also, he smells like sandalwood and a bit like smoke and blood, and now – like sweat and Magnus, and they will be together forever, if Magnus have luck.

And he will.

Without any fail.

It can't be the other way.

Fin~


End file.
